THE SALMON are still hitting hard. A bout of rough weather cleared the ocean of boats on Tuesday and Wednesday — but on Monday fishermen about 12 miles off the San Francisco and San Mateo coastlines had crossed lines with fish flopping everywhere, leaving messy decks just as they have for much of the still-young season. The New Rayann, for instance, took 24 fish for 12 anglers on Monday — fast, full limits, which really is the norm these days.

What's especially exciting is the size of these salmon. On the New Rayann, salmon that day weighed as much as 30 pounds and not much less than 12.

"The fish will be huge by the summertime," said Sean Hodges, skipper of the Hog Heaven out of Sausalito.

John McManus, the executive director of the Golden Gate Salmon Association, based in Petaluma, noted the large number of big fish in the 25- to 30-pound range now being caught. McManus guesses these are probably fish that chose (insomuch as fish may ever actually choose anything) to stay in the ocean an extra year before going upstream to spawn, which most Chinook salmon do after three years at sea.

"The way things are looking so far this season, I think anyone who puts in their time will get one of these 4-year-olds," McManus said.

The salmon are holding in a 20-mile spread of water from several miles outside the Golden Gate to just southeast of the main island at the Farallons, according to Hodges, who adds that most successful anglers are trolling anchovies through thickets of krill.

"Pretty much anywhere in that area that you stop to fish you'll catch at least one salmon," he said.

It isn't just Bay Area fishermen who are finding big numbers of fish. McManus said that up and down the coast, from Fort Bragg to Bodega Bay to Half Moon Bay to Monterey, schools of Chinooks are holding steady — which ends up being good news for all of us.

"My hope is that when all these disparate pods of fish sort themselves out and head for their respective rivers, we'll have a great return in the Sacramento system in the fall," McManus said.

Shooting higher

Salmon fishing seems great right now — except that federal law says it needs to be even better. That's because the Central Valley Project Improvement Act, passed by Congress in 1992, required water managers to do whatever it took to bring populations of fish in the Sacramento-San Joaquin river system back to their historic levels — roughly a million fish per year spawning in the Central Valley's rivers. That goal was not achieved and remains to be.

Just this week, a joint analysis of Sacramento River salmon runs past and present by Natural Resources Defense Council and the Golden Gate Salmon Association concluded that salmon runs are now about 20 percent what the Central Valley Project Improvement Act stated that they should be. The two groups named persistent over-allocation of water to the state's agriculture industry—which, like salmon, needs water to survive—as one of the main reasons salmon populations are still struggling.

The law's the law — so where are the salmon?

That said, efforts are being undertaken to bring back the fish. On Wednesday, a fishing boat named the Merva W transported 100,000 baby salmon downstream from a hatchery on the Feather River and released the smolts by the Golden Gate Bridge. What biologists hope is that, by transporting them past the Delta's hazardous water pumps and mazes of artificial canals and ditches and straight to the ocean, each salmon's likelihood of growing to adulthood and returning to spawn will be boosted. Each baby salmon is marked with a miniscule identification tag and, when they return in several years, a count will be tallied by state biologists to gauge their survival rate.

While groups like NRDC and GGSA, and boat captains like Michael McHenry, of the Merva W, help fight for the future of fish, one Marin man is working for the future of fishing itself. Zane Wiley, of San Rafael, runs "Z Experience Fishing Camps." The program hosts kids for one week, teaching them the basics of fishing on Marin County lakes and ponds before culminating a fishing trip aboard the New Rayann. This year, Z Experience Fishing Camps is open again to young and prospective fishermen aged nine to 15. The camps begin on June 17 and will be running through August. Visit Z Experience Fishing Camps on Facebook for more information.

Alastair Bland is a Bay Area fisherman. Send him stories, photos or video to allybland79@gmail.com or call the IJ sports desk at 382-7206.